I'm a bit of an NPR fanatic (about all I listen to is public radio, except when they have really weird or disgusting stuff on, like opera, or hillbilly, or regae -- if YOU like that, FINE, but I prefer my classical music WITHOUT vibrato voices, and I DON'T listen to public radio to hear hillbilly, country and regae)... Anyway, lately a BIG story has been the new car service Uber, which is now an even MUCH bigger story, since the taxi services throughout MOST of Europe are on a sort of STRIKE over it. This new service that can be called up using smartphone apps has been valued at more than $18 BILLION, based on recent investments, which was HIGHLY questioned on NPR/PRI on the basis of the very MINOR amount of business it's done to date, which doesn't show anywhere NEAR that sort of value (the valuation is based on EXPECTED earnings).

Anyway, the ONLY reason I bring this up is that the news analyst who was doing the story said $18 BILLION is more than SONY is valued at. That REALLY SURPRISED ME! I don't follow such things, but considering Sony OWNS Columbia pictures studios, and all its OLD movies, plus all the NEW movies it makes, in addition to its TV, camcorder, professional video, DSLR, and all its OTHER electronics businesses, I figured it would come in a great deal HIGHER than $18 BILLION. Amazon.com, for instance, is valued around $250 BILLION, and all it owns is its sales and a bunch of warehouses and sales systems, plus lots of computer servers.

I guess with the exception of, perhaps, Apple, the days of big electronics companies being worth "UBER-BUCKS" are long past.

That's a great story. I've never tried Uber and perhaps I should. However, one little bittie of legislation here in the EU to protect vested interests (in this case the traditional cab trade) and Uber would be toast in this part of the world, at a guess. As for all the crazy valuations: hmmn, makes me think this could be the long hot summer of insane expectations before a good old-fashioned stock market crash.

I'd wager that the new big electronics companies these days are Amazon and co. They own all the software and are very good at distribution, and that's enough to turn many of the traditional electronics companies into little more than suppliers of hardware which is is a crappy place to be.

The only stories I see now about Sony are either a) it's a financial disaster area and the sky is falling in etc etc or b) Sony have just launched an extremely clever new piece of technology that most other outfits are probably kicking themselves that they hadn't thought of. What the truth is I have no idea.